There remain less than 24 hours until Chelsea take on Wolves – so what are we expecting from Enzo Maresca? Quite a lot of caution in terms of selection, given it’s still just the second week of the season proper.
The manager has shown a lot of concern for making sure his team are rotated well – he made 9 changes in midweek for the UEFA Europa Conference League game against Servette. He knows the injury issues some of them have had and he knows there are a lot of players to keep happy. But they’ve got to be treated carefully if we want to go the distance on all fronts this year.
In general, we expect a reversion to the team that played Man City. But what about those Blues who featured twice – Moises Caicedo and Christopher Nkunku.
Two double-headers are at risk after midweek efforts
Can Maresca really risk playing them three times in a week? We don’t think so. Don’t forget that Caicedo had a truncated preseason too, only coming into the mix later on in the tour. We suspect the new coach could drop Caicedo for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall as he looks to keep everyone fresh and injury free.
Nkunku can be left out in a number of ways – Noni Madueke could play on the right with Palmer in Nkunku’s position, or Joao Felix comes in, or KDH plays in that role, or even Mykhailo Mudryk. Nkunku might be risked with an hour or so, but given his injury record that feels a risk. The key factor here might be that he played less than an hour on Thursday while, Caicedo played until the 89th minute.
Who knows, perhaps Maresca already has confidence in the pair to start thrice in a week: But to us, a start in midweek likely rules at least one of them out tomorrow.
